The New Believers

I’d like to welcome you all to The New Believers. My name is Brad and I am from Brisbane, Australia. I have been a member of the ALP since 2007 but a life long supporter.

But as much as I love the Labor Party, I believe that many things are wrong with it.

This blog isn’t your typical Labor Party page which usually act as cheerleaders. Infact I intend to carve out a new trail here. I plan to challenge the party and present some ideas and resources to equip you to help in this battle.

I don’t believe that rank and file members should be consigned to being election day cannon fodder and dismissed from truly participating in the party. I believe they should be heart of the party.

I don’t believe in being obsessed with the political cycle. This can be effectively used against members to keep them inline and subdued. I have a longer term view that is very concerned with changing the culture of the party.

I used to push for reform off other pages like The Red Team and through organisations such as Local Labor, but I feel that I need a dedicated page for my voice and that I would like to keep track of this journey. This is my effort to help ignite a true Labor reform movement.

I chose the name The New Believers as an obvious tip of the hat to the True Believers of the party but with a new twist. I purposefully used the plural of the word Believers because the #1 goal of this blog is to seek out like minds on the road to reform, like you.

Even though people like us are certainly outsiders in the party, I refuse to cede the party to factional overlords. I don’t truly consider us outsiders, perhaps displaced and under occupation. That’s another reason why I chose this name, I’m staking a claim on the party for people like us.

The New Believers is a realisation of many ideas I have had over the years, now they have a true home. It’s just taken a while for me to distil exactly what I wanted to do and how to do it.

It’s been long years since I became active in the ALP reform movement in 2010. I lament the years that have gone by and also the many dead-ends and false dawns we have seen come and go. However I feel very confident that I have some good strategies for party reform that will make a real difference. I feel that having seen things go full circle, I’ve seen the results of efforts to negotiation with the factions and or to wait for the party to reform itself fail, so much so that I have a surety of purpose.

Here at The New Believers I will post new content in three major categories.

Factual and informative news about what is happening in the ALP around the nation in terms of reform.

Articles from the media on the topic of party reform, including battles for preselections.

Blogs of my own thoughts, ideas and musings about the ALP democracy movement.

I hope presenting it in this way will make the site accessible to people and give it some type of credibility to the people I am trying to reach.